Pastoral Prayer (based on John 6: I Am the Bread of Life)

Holy God:

Each time we come to you we come with many needs. We need sustenance, we need clothing, we need
food, we need friendship and companionship and love. We need to feel appreciated. We need to feel
as if we are capable in our work and valued in our contribution to those around us.

You tell us to share our needs with you. You tell us to ask for the fulfillment of our needs. You ask us to
talk to you about the many hungers that we want so desperately to be filled.

And yet, when we get what we want, we only feel satisfied for a moment. We often fail to offer thanks.
We move on to the next thing we feel we must have.

So help us to come to you first and foremost seeking to have you, to have your love, to have a sense of
your presence. We need many things, but we so often fail to realize that we need you most. Often, it
is only when we lose all else that we feel you closest and have a the strongest sense that you are all we
truly need.

Be with those we love. Be with those who mourn. Heal the sick. Bring peace to the nations. Inspire
us in our work as a community of faith and help us to reach our community with your Gospel and your
love. Bless our nation and help us as a people to be a people of love and justice and holiness.

But most of all, give us yourself. By dying on a cross for us, you have shown us that you have given us
all, that you have given your very self to us. Help us to believe it and to live as if it is true. Amen.